cytusfandomcom-20200223-history
User blog:WheatyTruffles/The Cytus Chapter Tier List
At ease, men. Alpha male WheatyTruffles here, dropping another load of testosterone on your undeveloped minds, through the revolutionary medium of the blog. Bulk up and rise above the inferior beta cucks that plague our nation with me, TODAY. With these scientifically proven tips on how to flaunt your masculinity, you'll be able to put women in their place — in the kitchen. Please don't take this awful intro seriously— So, yeah. It's been a while. I'd say it's good to be back, but this blog will probably be chalked up as a sh*tpost thrown together as fodder for an awful community, so I can't really say that with a straight face. All grievances aside, let's continue the trend of my interest in Cytus being fueled purely by my ability to write about it. Even though I haven't played Cytus seriously in over a year, now that the totally not rushed Switch port is out, I figured now would be a great time to throw together a fun meme with my sustained knowledge of the game. And hey, what better meme to exploit than the sudden resurgence of tier lists? Screw those dumb WatchMojo Top 10s of the past; we've got tier lists now, bois. We’re gonna use the “golden seven” letters for our tiers (because I’m too lazy to make more unique tiers), with S, A, and B reflecting good chapters, C, D, and E reflecting average chapters, and F tier being the only tier for bad chapters, since there aren’t many of those in the game. Just mediocre ones. Also this list is almost entirely subjective, and if you take it seriously, please direct your complaints or laudations to any place where I won’t have to listen to you. No more dilly-dallying now, let’s clown around in Cytus town yet again. |-|Operators= Despite being one of three chapters to be overhauled in Cytus 7.0, I’d consider Chapter I to be the only chapter whose tier placement has changed radically as a result of the new charts. What used to be a dismal E tier chapter (saved only by the good music) has turned into an excellent starting point for new players, as well as a fun, relaxing romp for veterans of the game. I’ve heard a fair number of people complain about how the music here sucks, a la the cult of Paff hatred in C2, but Chapter I strikes me as a chapter with a lot of spunk. The music’s got so much energy, and although the featured genres might not tickle everyone’s fancy, they undeniably lend themselves well to the Cytus layout. You won’t find anything revolutionary here, and the cover arts kinda really suck, but overall you’ve got a solid collection on your hands with this one. I’m slamming Chapter I into B tier to kick us off. |-|Disaster= Chapter II feels like the opposite of Chapter I for me. Whereas Chapter I is an upbeat collection of songs with charts that hardly stray in quality from one another, (except for Hot Air Balloon lul) Chapter II is a wicked mess. You’ve got some songs, like Iris and Hard Landing, that toss kickass beats and charts your way, but then you’ve got songs like Sanctity and Nocturnal Type, which just reek of mediocrity. You’ve even got some like Sacred, that just straight-up suck. The quality here is all over the place, and that’s hardly a good quality to me. Lots of people will point at the Entrance series as a reason to boot this up to A tier, but I honestly think that the Entrance series is the most average thing about this chapter. Yeah, it introduced ICE, but think about how it compares to his other trilogy, L. I don’t care what your opinions on the songs or charts are; each of them vividly stand out from one another. Now look at the Entrance trilogy. You’ve got the updated one that’s sorta cramped I guess, the easy one, and the one with the double notes at the end. They’re bland. I’d make Chapter II a D tier, but the shining pieces in this chapter keep reeling me back in for more, so I’ll be nice and throw it right in the middle of the board. |-|Cytus= I think I remember calling Chapter III my favourite of the original three at one point in time. I don’t know what I was on at the time, honestly. This chapter’s lame. Chapter III feels like a less polished Chapter I. All the charts are the same difficulty, (aside from two; I don’t count The Riddle Story because they didn’t update it) which causes them all to bleed together. I criticized Chapter M and L for picking the same difficulty for all its charts; I can’t just give this one a pass for doing the same thing but with Level 7s instead. They also hardly bothered with updating the charts in this chapter. COSMO is less memorable than it used to be, as is Saika. And they didn’t update The Riddle Story. Prismatic Lollipops is still cool I guess, and I’ll defend Halcyon’s current chart ‘til my last breath, but really, there’s nothing here. I’d’ve put this one at a C tier just to piss off the Halcyon haters, but then I remembered that they haven’t f*cking updated The Riddle Story. D tier. |-|The Silence= Mediocre to a T, so much so that I don’t feel like talking about it. Chapter IV gets a D. |-|Vanessa= This chapter is horribly overrated in the public’s eye. Holy Knight sucks my nut. The song is fine, but I don’t want to play it, ever. Probably the most bland “eight-note spam” chart in the game. They could’ve done so much more with the instrumentals, especially the guitar in the climax. Biotonic is also so damn bland. The cover art is the only good thing about it. There’s, like, one interesting pattern in the chart, that’s it. What else is there to talk about in Chapter V, really? There are a few goodies in the music department, like Chocological and Zauberkugel, and a few goodies in the chart department, like Dino and Just A Trip. Nothing incredible. Again, I don’t like talking about mediocre chapters, so take my D and let’s move on. |-|The Lost= Chapter VI’s actually pretty dope. The music, in my opinion, is nothing to write home about, (except for Bloody Purity) but here’s where we break back into into the unique charting styles that we’ve been lacking for the past three chapters. The charts here are notably messier than Chapter I’s, but they also have many more unique ideas, sacrificing consistency for experimentation. Because of that, I find myself revisiting this chapter a lot more than any of the others prior. You’ve got Dragon Warrior, with its peculiar time signature and fun rushes. You’ve got Selfish Gene, with its surprisingly intricate yet fair slow chart. You’ve got The Blocks We Loved, which f*ck you f*ck you f*ck you. I know that this chapter isn’t really great or even good, but I really admire it, so it’s getting a B tier for me. |-|Loom= Oh, god. If I could rate sections of chapters, then I’d place the first two thirds of Chapter VII in the A tier. A bombastic collection of songs which, although stray a bit in the realm of absurd difficulty, all manage to provide memorable challenges that, for the most part, feel fair. You can tell this chapter marked the point when Rayark really began to hit their stride when it came to chart-crafting. However, the last third of this chapter drags the whole collection down quite a bit. Like, Musik is a half-decent song, and the ending of Hercule’s got some sorta neat patterns, but damn dude, this sh*t just puts me to sleep. I probably would’ve been more lenient toward this chapter if it wasn’t organized like this, but as it stands now, it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth whenever I decide to play through the whole thing. That, and it gave birth to Chapter L. Yuck. Chapter VII lands in C tier. |-|Another Me= Hoooh, man. I am so sorely tempted to smack this baby into the S tier where I believe it truly belongs, but like with Chapter VI, I know at heart that this chapter isn’t as good as I feel it to be. Q overstays its welcome a solid 15 seconds into the song, plenty of people I know dislike Hoskey, and Scherzo is almost universally despised. Still, if Chapter VIII didn’t pull off some crazy sh*t with the charting formula! Masquerade is a complex test of coordination, AXION pioneered half a dozen patterns that have become mainstays in most difficult charts, and Laplace is just so. Goddamn. Sick. And Slit. Ohhhh my god. This song is my child. My new personal favourite song in the game — all three of them, for that matter. The most epic, iconic, consistent, fair trilogy of charts in the game. Don’t @ me. I’ll place Chapter VIII in A tier, just to kill that one conniption fit over Scherzo before it happens. You’re welcome, Reddit. |-|Buried= It almost goes without saying that this chapter is good. Not as good as Chapter VIII, but better than Chapter VII. Even if you don’t care for his music, I think it indisputable that NeLiME was a perfect fit for the tone of Cytus, if only rather overused in this chapter. The other charts are solid, for the most part. Oriens, Qualia, and Warlords of Atlantis stand out in my mind. Really, the only thing keeping this collection from A tier is the music. Yeah, I know I defended Chapter I’s music a little while back, but hey, subjectivity. The music in Chapter IX is all over the place, and ranges from sorta cool to yawn-inducing. Seriously, To Further Dream is the most boring “epic” song I’ve heard in my life. I also hate East West Wobble in literally every aspect. Ladder notes can suck my left nut. Chapter IX still gets a B tier, and I think that’s a rank most people would agree with. Rayark’s on a roll now; there’s no way they can screw up, right? |-|The New World= Ohhhhhh noooooooooooooo. Let me get this out of the way first: the music in Chapter X is so, so bad. If Chapter IX was a mish-mash of odd crap, then this is just… crap. Cut out everything else, this music is crap. This is a fact. I have consulted the top five doctors in the world, and all of them have classified Chapter X as an incurable parasite upon our nation. The 11th revision of the ICD lists each song in this collection as causing numerous cases of respiratory failure, brain damage, and a permanent crust behind the eyes, which causes people to see Misaki Okusawa as anything less than best girl. Truly, a fundamental flaw within our natural human genealogy. And yet… I’m not placing this chapter in F tier. Remember, F tier is only for truly bad chapters. We haven’t gotten there yet. Chapter X still has some redeeming elements, namely in the chart department. I don’t think the chart quality in this chapter holds a candle to the prior three, but Red Eyes and Gatorix are still… fun. Yeah, fun. Ladder notes are still a cancer upon our nation, but Halloween Party is an alright jam, as is Set Free. See, I can find things to like, even in a chapter like this. What I’m really trying to say is: Chapter X isn’t bad. It’s f*cking awful, and I’m only rating it this low because I’m jelly of Freedom Dive, haHAA |-|INTERMISSION= Y'know, after tossing together the first half of this blog, I decided to go out and write over 15000 words on how to play a character class in D&D. It was a passion project that ended up being informative, well-researched and constructed, and, most of all: fun to write. I don't think I've ever had that much fun writing about a game before. It was truly enlightening. But that's all done now so lemme go back to this dumb joke of a blog First of all, we've got a couple of wrongs to right from the first half of this list. To cover them quickly: *Chapter III's getting demoted to E tier. It sucks *Chapter IV's also getting pulled out of D tier, but up instead. My entry for it was a nice gag, but I was honestly just too lazy to talk about it. This chapter actually has a lot to like about it, with Future World, Darkness, and Sweetness and Love standing out in my mind. And Area184 is terrific. One of the best slow charts in the game. I don't care what you think, this song as it is in Cytus 1 is near perfect. Seeing the remake made me happy that I've never played C2 before, and am instead left with the objectively superior version of this song, don't @ me. So the list going into Part 2 looks like this now: |-|Cytus Alive= I didn't really include this as a part of the original chapters, since it makes more sense to rate them as their own entity. This collection is the closest thing to a legit album we have in Cytus, (that's probably because it is) and that's pretty dope. The music here is rad as fuck. The charts kinda suck. The story cutscenes are kinda neat the first time around, but a skip button or actual patterns over top of the changing backgrounds would have helped them age a lot better. Vanessa and The Lost are the only ones I really enjoy nowadays. A tier songs, E tier charts. That's a C tier overall, right there. |-|Prologue= Chapter 0 is painfully average. Not at all worth being touted over everyone's heads as the "one and only Vita exclusive chapter," which is probably why they ushered it into a random mobile update one day. Process and Megaera are excellent. I also probably like Violet more than I should. It works much better than Q as a rush song, anyhow. But the rest of the chapter is really lame. D tier. |-|Symphony= Like with Chapter VIII, I'm so sorely tempted to stick Chapter S in S tier. It'd be too perfect, how could I not? The problem here isn't that there are too many bad parts of this chapter, it's that there aren't enough good parts. This is the most consistently good chapter in the game, but I don't think that's enough for S tier. It's hardly excellent in any fashion. Still, pretty much every song and chart in this chapter has something to like about it, and I'd be hard-pressed to list everything that's good about it. The only kinda iffy parts, from what I can see are Revoluxionist's chart and Outsider's melody. Oh, and Rain of Fire I guess. Because slow charts aren't allowed to exist in my Christian rhythm game. This is an A tier chapter, and I feel like that's the most unironically solid rating I'll give on this list. |-|Knight= There seem to be a lot of people who love Chapter K, and a lot of people who hate it. I'm inclined to think well of it, though the chapter's certainly not without its faults. Knight of Firmament and The Fallen Bloom are the typical examples of excellence found in this chapter, though I personally like songs such as The Red Coronation and The Way We Were better, from both a musical and charting perspective. And yes, I still think Music is a perfect ending for the chapter. Still, it's hard to ignore the bad elements. The Sanctuary is a sleeper-fest of a song, Lord of Crimson Rose is a sleeper-fest of a chart, and Forbidden Codex is… both. This song is terrible lol B tier, since I still get an overall positive vibe from this collection. |-|Retro= This is it. This is what every collection in a rhythm game should strive to be in some way or another. Thematically cohesive, yet not exclusive in its approach. Exceedingly diverse and creative in its composition of song and chart. A valiant refusal to comply with set standards or expectations. This may not be my favourite chapter in the game, but it is, in my opinion, undoubtedly the best. You must be missing a fragment of your soul if you cannot find at least one thing you adore about Chapter R. S tier. |-|Timeline= I might be alone in saying this, but Chapter T is soooooo good. I don't care that it has a weak story or that the music is all the same. Those have been thematic components tacked-on to several chapters before this one; you're only complaining now? Honestly, I think Chapter T exemplifies these standards which we've grown so used to. The music is pretty damn diverse, and many of the charts, like with Chapter R, try out many new and exciting things. Sure, some songs like Empire of Japan and A New Home fall into a bit of tedium, and Money & Money was a complete mistake, which is why I'm only putting this in A tier. But damn if I won't stand by that rating with my heart and soul. |-|Million= I used to consider this one of the worst chapters in the game purely because of the fact that every song was a Level 9 on Hard. Falling into that tedium inadvertently is one thing, (as Chapter III and Chapter K sorta did) but actively chasing that tedium as a thematic component of your chapter, even when it worsens the quality of some of your charts, (*cough* Gardenia *cough* Afterglow) is a really, really f*cking stupid thing to do. Still, over the years I've mellowed out toward this chapter, and I've found quite a few things to like about it. The Long Years and The Sacred Story are flawed but still highly enjoyable, I've learned to appreciate songs I once loathed, such as Stardust Sphere and Sweetness Overload, and The Ricochet still stands as proof that Rayark, at this time, still knew how to innovate and improve. Just not enough. Chapter M is a C tier chapter. That's as high as I'm willing to put it, respect for the Million Download Plan at heart and all. |-|Deemo= Rayark shouldn't make collaborations with themselves. F tier. Seeing as this chapter's nothing more than a lazy reference, it's fitting that I do the same with this section. |-|L= Chapter L gets put into D tier. I don't want to talk much about this one, but know that I've probably put more thought about what I think of this chapter than any other chapter in the game. The truth of the matter is that the version we have now is about the best iteration we all could have asked for, so we should stop complaining about how this chart is unfair to new players or some sh*t like that. That's the damn point of there being a Chapter L in the first place. Instead of falling back on the "it's too difficult" argument, I'll instead berate the obscene length and tedium of the entire collection. In a supposed full run of Cytus, (like the one I did that one time back when I enjoyed rhythm games) I could imagine this chapter being the worst part of the run by far. There are undoubtedly some phenomenal compositions of song and chart in Chapter L, but they're all stuck in this messy beast of a collection that just doesn't mold well with the rest of the game. |-|Night Keepers= This one's an F tier. The awe-inspiring musical style of Night Keepers is unfortunately wasted by Rayark's insistence to keep their heads wedged so far up their own asses that, during their high of sheer pretension, they forgot how to make charts for their own game. |-|Omega= Yup, looks like we're doing the Alpha chapters after all. Except… I haven't actually played Cytus Alpha. Aye, I've studied the charts on YouTube and formed my own opinions on them, but that won't be enough to appease the tier list gods. So, I've recruited a second opinion to help me out here. That's not to say I'll necessarily agree with it, but let's allow this idiot to talk first. Pit-Stain's Chapter Omega Notes The first thing to note about Chapter Omega is that half of the songs are just pre existing songs from Cytus II and VOEZ, while the rest is either original or was from Cytus Omega, which was the whole point of this Chapter. Yeah not particularly a good look, but I can let it slide. The first half of the chapter absolutely reeks. You've got a sh*tty Alpha Legion song, not-Ricochet, and a piece of sh*t weeb ass Cytus II song that was charted by my drunk uncle at thanksgiving. Keep those sh*tty Cytus II charters away from my game, dammit. Flame Dark was the last good KIVA song imo, which isn't saying much. KIVA sucks my king kong dick. On the bright side, citanLu, Infinite Wonderland and VIS::CRACKED finally got the charts they deserved (and by that I mean they're finally in a good rhythm game). Cristalisia is an excellent onoken song, and N makes me wish it wasn't another song named after a letter just to be one of the cool kids, but otherwise a bop and a half. First impressions were poor, but the chapter starts picking up halfway through. That's a C tier. ...wait, am I forgetting something...? is where I insert a meme from the Smash ultimate reveal of the Inklings staring at a flaming smash ball in the distance except its replaced by Old Gold Apo11o remix ...ok slap that into B tier. Nah, it's going into C tier, f*ck you. Apo11o's Old Gold and Cristalisia were the only exceptional pieces for me; CitanLu, VIS::CRACKED, and N all kinda sucked. I believe I summarized my thoughts quite well by saying that this chapter just felt like a watered down version of other songs and charts in the game. Certainly not bad, but definitely could've been something much more. |-|DJMAX= Take it away, Pitsicles. Pit-Stain's Chapter DJMAX Notes Ok let's get this out of the way quick, Blythe sucks. Cool, now shall we cover the rest of the Chapter? inhale ABSOLUTELY AMAZING Chapter DJMAX may not appeal to the majority of the players as it mostly contains pop songs, but in my case this is an absolute win. Don't Die is a boppin' chiptune wubfest with symmetrical patterns that make my fingers swoon in pleasure. Memory Of Beach is Hey Wonder on steroids. End of the Moonlight is my wife. The Clear Blue Sky is easily my new favorite slow chart in the game. The other songs are all great as well, but these aforementioned ones were standouts to me. I've honestly never seen a consistent song lineup ever since S or 7, as well as some fresh charts to back it up. Like, some of the ideas here come across as experimental but they really work given the context of the song. Y has a triple note that corresponds to the lyrics. SuperSonic spams drags to no end and still manages to be a gay ol' time. This is an easy A tier for me, the replay value is so high I could see myself practice some TP100s (once I figure out how to optimally play on a Switch that is). Lmao, Chapter 7 being consistent is laughable. Still, aside from that I almost wholeheartedly agree with Pit here. I personally detest Y a lot more than Blythe, and Play the Future sounds like it was pulled straight from an HMV, but aside from that this chapter's real damn solid. More than solid; some of the songs are legitimately beautiful, and many of the charts scream a real renaissance in the classic Cytus charting style. If the people in charge of this chapter took to remaking Chapter D and N in the future, I think it'd be more than enough to pull me back into this game with gusto. A tier, for sure. |-|THE FINAL TIER LIST= "If you think your list is more accurate than this, then f*ckin' prove it, b*tch." ~green man Category:Blog posts